Microsoft BI (MSBI) vs. Microsoft Power BI Embedded

The Microsoft BI suite of tools, which comprises tools from the SQL Server suite, provides end-to-end features and functionality for businesses of any size. Users who need dashboards and reports fast will benefit from this tool. It’s simple to connect to databases, cloud storage systems, and CSV files of any type. This makes the dashboards suitable for a more rapid presentation workflow because we can easily incorporate them into PowerPoint presentations. Enterprise and standard editions are both available for some tools.

Incentivized

The scenario where it shines more is in the treatment of data that is not easily correlated at first sight, it helps to find causes of unsuccess in productive environments. The only thing that is required is to have properly collected data to feed to Power BI, so it won't be useful in environments where the data is not collected with care, since the representations won't be representatives of the reality.

Incentivized

• The layout of Power BI is very intuitive. Someone that is familiar with Excel and working with Charts and Graphs in that environment will find the learning curve a rather short one to start using Power BI.
• I like the way Power BI fits an assortment of users and how the functionality that you engage is replicated in Excel, that being Power Query and Power Pivot. So what you learn in one tool can be readily applied towards the other which allows you to more effectively apply your training.
• I appreciate how Microsoft is working to develop tools that go a long ways to empowering the end user. Prior to Power BI I would have had to consult with a "BI" professional to develop a dashboard. With Power BI I don't have to consult with anyone, I can work to put together the dash board I want and using a tool set that is really robust and allows me to engage an enormous amount of data. It's provides a great deal of flexibility and the types of data I can connect to.
• Updates...Microsoft is working diligently to keep Power BI current with monthly updates. They do a really good job of listening to the end user, if there is functionality not currently present just give them a month or so.
• Just to be clear, even though it's easy to get going right out of the gate with Power BI it provides plenty of opportunities to create some really sophisticated reporting solutions. With DAX in Power Pivot and M language in Power Query, you are provided with plenty of head room to do some really amazing things in Power BI.
• Training...there are resources across the web for learning and growing your skills and Power BI. And what's even better is the majority of those resources are free.
• Data engagement, when presenting the data to the end user Power BI goes a long way to allowing that end user to engage the data and begin to identify root cause by simply interacting with the graph/chart/data set. It allows for really fluid engagement. Prior to Power BI so many times during the presentation of data we often times ended the engagement with that data with more questions than what were answered. With Power BI, more often than not, the end user is able to get answers to the questions by simply clicking on the data in the graph/chart/dataset to see the details. This tool really does have the capacity to make you look like a rock star.

Incentivized

• It is very easy to connect multiple data sources for a single report. You can use CSV, Excel, database integration, etc.
• Power Bi supports Python as well, which makes it a lot easier for us as it is known by most of our team.

Incentivized

• The race to perfect gathering of Non-Traditional datasets is on-going; with Microsoft arguably not the leader of the pack in this category.
• Licensing options for PowerBI visualizations may be a factor. I.e. if you need to implement B2C PowerBI visualizations, the cost is considerably high especially for startups.
• Some clients are still resistant putting their data on the cloud, which restricts lots of functionality to Power BI.

Incentivized

• It was a little difficult to work out how to create certain visualisations, but there is extensive online help material to support with this.
• Had some issues with assigning pro licences but these were quickly resolved
• Small learning curve but no more so than similar applications

Incentivized

Microsoft BI is fundamental to our suite of BI applications. That being said, Northcraft Analytics is focused on delighting our customers, so if the underlying factors of our decision change, we would choose to re-write our BI applications on a different stack. Luckily, mathematics are the fundamental IP of our technology... and is portable across all BI platforms for the foreseeable future.

Usability is great. This product will make most feel right at home. I feel like this question should be asked from two points of view: 1. Creator of reports, Data Models, Views etc: Most Advanced users will still rate the usability as very high. Its capabilities are still robust. However when compared to other Enterprise Class products it will not do many of the advanced application queries. 2. End user, Consumer: All end users will feel right at home. Many will be able to create connections to already created data models and other external publicly available sources like twitter, Facebook, World Health order etc... These connections are then in turn very very easily available to publish to SharePoint and Power BI. It took me a while to understand what I think is Microsoft's strategy. This will handle all but the most of robust needs. Much like many American made cars and my favorite Corvette, Microsoft is fast, has it own break downs from time to time but all of these are really to tolerate when the price is considered and the next one up that can out perform it is three to four times as much money makes this an easy one to still recommend

Reports are stable and always avaiable when needed.

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) can drag at times. We created two report servers and placed them under an F5 load balancer. This configuration has worked well. We have seen sluggish performance at times due to the Windows Firewall.

While support from Microsoft isn't necessarily always best of breed, you're also not paying the price for premium support that you would on other platforms. The strength of the stack is in the ecosystem that surrounds it. In contrast to other products, there are hundreds, even thousands of bloggers that post daily as well as vibrant user communities that surround the tool. I've had much better luck finding help with SQL Server related issues than I have with any other product, but that help doesn't always come directly from Microsoft.

This training was more directed toward what the product was capable of rather than actual programming.

I have used on-line training from Microsoft and from Pragmatic Works. I would recommend Pragmatic Works as the best way to get up to speed quickly, and then use the Microsoft on-line training to deep dive into specific features that you need to get depth with.

We are a consulting firm and as such our best resources are always billing on client projects. Our internal implementation has weaknesses, but that's true for any company like ours. My rating is based on the product's ease of implementation.

MSBI for my company is a like using a car that has a good balance of features, is easy to use, has good support, and works well with other things or requirement you may have. We specifically chose it because it is one of the promising platform whose support team will never let us down. Plus all the features of MSBI are A1 and productive according to my team's analysis.

Microsoft Power BI Embedded is already established as a de-facto standard as a business intelligence platform for the enterprise world. It comprises the best features to be delivered for the products being developed by providing a wide range of functionality. For instance, there are supported numerous graphic visualizations of data points such histograms, pie charts, heat maps and so on

• As it came "in the box" with necessary SQL Server RDBMS purchases, the ROI for the BI components are high as there was no incremental cost.
• Has provided standard reporting for most of the organization available via highly formatted PDF or Excel versions.
• Has provided ad-hoc analytics using SSAS in conjunction with Excel.

Incentivized

• Microsoft Power BI has had a positive impact on our business objectives by allowing everyone to better understand the data that is being presented. Some people can process numbers and charts easily, but interactive visualizations can aid visual learners and just makes the dashboard look a lot nicer with the ability to dive deeper into the numbers (through visualizations). Thus, engagement and understanding have improved.
• One negative impact is that there is a rather steep learning curve since Microsoft Power BI's language (DAX/M) can be quite different from traditional Excel. Because of that, either you need to hire people who are specialized in Microsoft Power BI, or you need to account for the fact that they will need to be trained (or take time to learn it). Thus, there can be direct costs from hiring new people, or indirect costs through training/employee taking time to learn the software.
• Another positive impact of Microsoft Power BI is that it got us thinking about how we can be better as an organization in terms of laying out our raw data, organizing data, conducting research into better metrics we can track and report on, etc. Because Microsoft Power BI made the presentation/visualization (+ regular updating/maintenance) part of our dashboard easier for us, we were able to start thinking about additional metrics and additional ways we can improve our reporting.

Incentivized